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Korg SDD-3000 "Programmable Digital Delay" full page colour advertisement from page 55 in the December 1982 issue of Keyboard Magazine.
Aaaah - the sun is out and I'm bathing in its warmth. But for how long? I got a lot to say... better get busy.
First and foremost, from a marketing point of view, what's really interesting about Korg's recent announcement of its new SDD-3000 Delay Pedal is that this ISN'T analog. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE analog and was first in line to get Korg's reintroduced MS-20. But if the online response to this piece of retro DIGITAL technology is any indication, analog isn't necessarily king. RETRO is. Analog. Digital. It doesn't matter. A success here will open the door for Korg and many other companies to seriously think about reintroducing a wider range of retro gear. And that's good for everybody.
Korg has really been on a string of hits lately. First with the MS20 filter in those cute little Monotrons back in 2010 and 2011, and then in the MS20mini and the kit. Those units pretty much sold themselves.
But with two of Korg's most interesting recent announcements (for me anyways), it shouldn't go unnoticed that they have been brought in some heavy hitters to partner with.
First was the totally unexpected and surprising ARP Odyssey announcement back in February where they brought in none other than ARP original Dave Friend. That is just so amazing on so many levels. And now with the SDD-3000 pedal, who's name is appearing next to it? U2 guitar tech Dallas Schoo. That's who.
Korg knows that if they are going to come out with an SDD remake, who better than to partner with than the band that single-handedly put that effects unit back on the map. I have no doubt they could have pulled it off with him, but it just wouldn't have been the same. AND, think about the negativity that could have resulted if they hadn't brought U2 guitar tech Dallas Schoo in and then he comments on how he *didn't* like it. Ouch.
Smart move. Which brings me to my next point - another smart move by Korg.
Although the official introductory news release for Korg's NEW SDD-3000 Delay Pedal is dated July 10, 2014, Korg USA tweeted the introduction of this awesomeness just after 8 p.m. (my time :) on July 9, linking to their product page. Social media wins again. Most stogy corporations won't let anything leak until a news release goes out. And that sucks bum. In this day and age, there is no problem with giving it to the people before you give it to the media when the story is this hot.
Anyways, no matter how the news got out first, the result was a lot more happy guitarists in the world. Even the Emo ones I'm sure. AaaaaND even those of us who aren't guitarists (or barely keyboardists) who have also looked back on the SDD-3000 with such great fondness. Korg continued the SDD- tradition by later releasing the SDD-1000, SDD-1200 dual delay, SDD-2000 sampling digital delay and my personal favorite, the SDD-3300 triple digital delay.
But as happens in the musical world, the first born is usually the favorite. And so it is with the SDD-3000 and the masses. The U2-angle obviously helped, but I think its also a favorite because it was a first for Korg and people have a soft spot for firsts.
It wasn't their first effects unit, but it was their first cool looking digital effects unit. As far as I know, before this effects unit was released, their effects looked... well... like older effects boxes. The era of the 1-unit cool-and-sleek looking digital effects rack was still just in its infancy, and this was Korg throwing their hat into the Keyboard-Magazine-ring relatively early in the game.
This doesn't mean it was the first 1-unit digital delay off the block, but it was probably one of the first that me and many others heard about because the only place we read about anything music-wise was in Keyboard. I'm guessing there is a good chance that other digital rack gear such as those by Lexicon were getting promoted in other magazines, but as a kid who pretty much exclusively read Keyboard, I didn't see it. As far as I was concerned, it only existed if it was in Keyboard. :)
Let's put it in perspective a bit.
Before this Korg ad, effects advertisements and spec sheet write ups in Keyboard for the most part came in one of two forms. You had pedals being manufactured and advertised by the likes of MXR, Electro-Harmonix, Pearl and Boss, and you had big bulky effects boxes created by companies like Bode and Roland. These were what I was most interested in and the real standouts for me at the time were Roland's RE-501 delay, Yamaha's E1010 and E1005 analog delay rack units and Sequential Circuits PRO-FX system (drooooooool).
But in amongst all those ads and spec sheets, readers of Keyboard were about to get a hint of what was to come in the sleek-and-clean digital rack world.
First, in late 1981 the spec sheet section of Keyboard magazine included the new Fostex model 3050 digital delay that featured 270 milliseconds delay time for a tidy $450.00. Ohhhh.
Then in April 1982, DeltaLab published an ad in Keyboard for their Time Line DL-4 digital delay 1-unit rack and followed that up in August and October 1982 with an ad for their $499 Effectron digital delay 1-unit rack. Both slim, sleek and almost digital looking. Almost.
And then, with DeltaLabs holding the door open, Korg walked through with this SDD-3000 advertisement at the end of 1982. And although the ad didn't appear more than two or three times, it did make a statement. First, the ad was designed to be horizontal. You had to flip the magazine 90 degrees to read it. Second, the unit itself was really different looking from previous Korg effects units with its digital read-out and puuurdy yellow buttons.
Although ADA and Ibanez would end up advertising here and there throughout 1983, it was DeltaLabs that really tried to make Keyboard's digital delay territory their own. That company began a manufacturing and advertising blitz, first in the March 1983 issue with an ad for the whole family including the ADM-256 ($499.00), ADM-64 ($399.00) and ADM-1028 ($699.00). By August 1983 they had no less than three ads running in each issue. To compare, Korg and Yamaha both had a maximum of three ads running in a single issue at the height of their advertising blitzes. DeltaLabs was in good company.
Interestingly, it wasn't until nine months after the Kord SDD-3000 ad appeared that it was finally featured in the Spec Sheet section of the September 1983 issue of Keyboard.
"The SDD-3000 is a programmable digital delay. It was designed to produce a number of effects including chorusing, flanging, doubling, reverb, doppler effects, infinite repeats, and so on. All control settings can be stored in nine different program locations and easily recalled via push buttons or footswitches. Specs and features include: up to 1032 milliseconds of delay, 30Hz to 17kHz frequency response; stereo capability; footswitch connections for program up and down, delay bypass, and hold modes; a feedback loop with 4-position high and lowpass filters; phase inversion of feedback loop and final loop; input and output facilities on the front and rear panel; triangle, square, and random waveforms from the LFO; external and envelope control of the VCO; and 3-position input and output attenuators. Price is $1,495.00. Korg, 79 Frost St., Westbury, NY 11590."$1,495.00. Wowza. The new pedal is $399.99. Another reason to like retro digital re-boots!
Well, I think I've rattled on long enough. Time to go out and enjoy the...
damn... raining again.


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Kids' Burton Zipline Boa® Snowboard Boot
A soft flex and all-around easy Boa® closure for the next step in kid-focused comfort.
Inside and out, the Burton Zipline Boa® boot is a kid-tested, parent-approved winner for maximum fun and fuss-free function. No shortcuts here, just real-deal performance and features to get kids ahead, from the customized fit and warmth of a heat-moldable Imprint™ liner to the weightless feel and cushioning of the DynoLITE outsole. Add the easy entry/exit and mitt-friendly adjustability of the Boa® Closure system and you get a boot that kids will actually want to wear all day.

subset: commoncrawl


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Doctor Who Treated Girl With Brain Tumor Will Walk Her Down the Aisle
You only wish more doctors had this kind of bond with their patients.
In this video from 2012, which is only now trending, Dr. Alex Levy, of Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children, recalls the harrowing story of a girl named Chloe who came in violently ill on Christmas Eve only to discover she had a brain tumor.
After several surgeries and bouts of chemotherapy, Chloe does not appear to have the tumor anymore and is living the life of a normal girl her age. Her father, who was so scared he wouldn't be able to walk his little girl down the aisle at her wedding, is so grateful that he told the doctor he planned to let him do the honors when that day comes.
It's an incredibly moving gesture and an incredibly moving video. Don't be surprised when the tears start flowing -- you've been warned.


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By Stephen Lendman
July 20, 2013
On July 20, headlines reported the news. The doyen of the White House House press corps was gone.
After a long illness, the Gridiron Club and Foundation announced her passing. She ended decades covering presidential press conferences saying, "Thank you, Mr. President."
She was special. She'll be sorely missed. She spoke truth to power. Too few like her remain. Washington targets those who do.
She withstood tough challenges. She did it throughout her career. She was born on August 4, 1920. She's a Winchester, KY native. Her father was a grocer. She was one of nine children.
She was the first female White House press corps representative. She worked for UPI. She covered US administrations for five decades. She began during the Kennedy years. Her tenure was unprecedented.
As a high school freshmen, journalism was her ambition. In 1942, she earned a Wayne State University BA in English. Her career spanned six decades.
She became a Washington Daily News copy girl. She advanced to reporter status. She did so quickly. Her talent was too good to hold back.
She began reporting local news. She did women's stories. In the early 1950s, she covered Washington celebrities and government agencies.
In 1960, she covered President-elect John Kennedy. She attended daily press briefings and conferences. In 1962, she convinced Kennedy to let women attend annual White House dinners. Journalists and photographers were invited.
In 1970, she became UPI's first female White House Bureau chief. In 1975, she was the first woman admitted to Washington's Gridiron Club. Later she became its president.
In 1975-76, she was White House Correspondents Association's first female president.
Over the span of her career, she became a legend in her own time. No one in modern-day mainstream US journalism matched her. She was a fixture at White House press conferences.
She was called "the First Lady of the Press." It was for good reason. She covered 10 presidents for over five decades. She asked hard-hitting questions.
She wrote about what readers need to know. She sat in the first row. For decades, she asked the first question. It was a special honor perhaps few, if any others, enjoyed.
In 2000, she resigned from UPI. She did so after Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church acquired it. Hearst Corporation hired her as a columnist.
Throughout her career, she received numerous awards. She got over 30 honorary degrees. In 1976, she was named one of the World Almanac's 25 Most Influential Women in America.
In 1986, she received the University of Kansas William Allen White Foundation Award for Journalistic Merit. In 1991, she won the Freedom Forum Al Neuharth Award for Excellence in the Media.
In 1998, the White House Correspondents Association established the Helen Thomas Lifetime Achievement Award. It did so in her honor.
In 2000, Wayne State University created the Helen Thomas Spirit of Diversity Award.
In 2002, the National Newspaper Association gave her a lifetime achievement award. In 2007, so did the Washington Press Club Foundation. The same year, she received the National Research Center for Women & Families Foremother Award.
In 2010, she got the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) lifetime achievement award.
The same year, her career prematurely end. She spoke truth to Israel. She said Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine (and) go home."
She meant Israeli occupiers. She expressed frustration and anger about 62 years of persecution. It's over 65 now. It's 46 under brutalizing militarized occupation. It's horrific enough to enrage any justice defender.
Thomas explained more. Her comments "reflect(ed her) heartfelt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance. May that day come soon," she stressed.
She retired days later. In July 2011, she resumed writing for the Falls Church News-Press.
In April 2012, PLO General Mission to America head Maen Areikat honored Thomas for her "long career in the field of journalism, during which she defended the Palestinian position every step of the way."
According to Washington's PLO office, its Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi "presented Thomas with the appreciation and blessing of the president and the Palestinian people, for all of her actions supporting Palestine in the West."
Ralph Nader called her "a pioneering, no-nonsense newswoman." She's a "hero of honest journalism and women's rights."
She's "the scourge of dissembling presidents and White House press secretaries." In 2006, she challenged George Bush saying:
"Your decision to invade Iraq has caused the deaths of Americans and Iraqis. Every reason given, publicly at least, has turned out not to be true."
In mid-2010, she asked Obama: "When are you going to get out of Afghanistan? Why are we continuing to kill and die there? What is the real excuse?"
Her trademark was asking tough "why" questions. Self-censoring wasn't her style. She knew lies when she heard them. She challenged duplicitous dissembling.
She rejected sugarcoated rubbish. She didn't look the other way. She refused to roll over for power.
She challenged wrongs needing exposure. She did so responsibly. She believed good journalism involves "comfort(ing) the afflicted and afflict(ing) the comfortable."
She took Aldous Huxley's comments seriously. "Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored," he said.
She cared. It showed. She spent a lifetime telling readers what they need to know. She did so reponsibly. It bears repeating. She'll be sorely missed.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at email@example.com.
His new book is titled "Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity."
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.


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'Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi
'Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi was a Persian astronomer who lived during the 10th century. In 964, he documented the Andromeda galaxy, our closest neighbor, and called it "little cloud". This was the first record of a star system outside our own galaxy.
Al-Sufi's book on stars was translated into many languages and had a big influence on European astronomy. Many star names used today show evidence of the Arabic name originally applied by al-Sufi.


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Camille Pissarro
Route de Versailles, Louveciennes, Winter Sun and Snow
Camille Pissarro painted twenty-two canvas of the effects of light, seasonal weather, and movement on Route de Versailles in Louveciennes between the autumn of 1869 and the summer of 1872. He and his family had leased part of a substantial 18th-century house on that street. One friend and colleague, Claude Monet, who lived in the nearby town of Bougival for much of that same period, seems to have spent several days with the Pissarros and painted with him on the Route de Versailles in the snowy winter of 1869-1870. Both men were to move from suburban Paris to the environs of London in 1870 to escape the rigours of the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune in France. Pissarro returned to his house, to find it ransacked by the German troops during the period of the siege of Paris.
Surely the Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza's wonderfully wintery view of the Route de Versailles was made in the winter of 1869-1870 and is, hence, one of the earliest works in the series of twenty-two canvases. It relates directly to a smaller canvas made at precisely the same point in the road and framing an identical view. This canvas (La Route de Versailles (effet de neige), PV 72) was surely made as a small-scale study for the Thyssen canvas and was dated on completion, 1870, therefore forcing us to date the undated Thyssen canvas to 1870. The reasons for this are obvious. To achieve a "plein-air" quality in the snow, one has to endure very cold conditions while painting. For this reason, Pissarro chose a vantage point almost precisely in the front of his house, so that he could go in and out easily during the process of painting. He also elected to render his sensations of this fleeting quality of light and weather on a canvas of comparatively small dimension that could serve as the model for a larger painting which was mostly like executed almost entirely in the warmth of the studio. Hence, the Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza painting, for all its freshness, was probably painted indoors with the smaller and more direct work as the model.
Pissarro painted five snowy landscapes on the Route de Versailles during the winter of 1869-1870. In all probability the storm occurred in January of 1870, when Monet was staying with the Pissarros and when the younger artist painted three views of the same street. Hence, there are eight winter landscapes of the Route de Versailles produced by Monet and Pissarro early in 1870, of which the Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza's is a principal masterpiece. The two largest paintings in the sequence are Monet's Route de Versailles, effet de neige (W 147) in a private collection in Chicago and Pissarro's La route par la neige, Louveciennes (PV 142) in a private collection. These are followed by three canvases by Pissarro of identical dimension, of which the Thyssen's is the most fully developed, perhaps largely because it is based on a painted study. Interestingly, Monet may have created a painting of the same street on the same days, but from a vantage point on the other side of the road. This canvas Route, effet d'hiver, soleil couchant, is also of almost identical dimension as the Pissarro and is today in the Musée des Beaux Arts, Rouen.
This small group of paintings by Pissarro and Monet occupy equivalent positions in the history of Impressionism as the better known sequence of paintings made by Renoir and Monet in the summer of 1869 at la Grenouillere in Bougival. The summer sequence was difficult because of the quantity of figures and boats on the water and the resulting "mobility" of the landscape motif, while the winter sequence posed problems of temperature and, of course, of the real difficulties of painting snow, which is at once reflective and less material than the paint that describes it. Monet had already attempted winter landscapes earlier in the 1860s and was, hence, more adept at this kind of painting. Pissarro had shown less interest in effects of light and atmosphere than in questions of pictorial construction and composition. It is, in fact, likely that the impetus of Monet effectively challenged Pissarro to a kind of pictorial duel of complex plein-air transcription. Indeed, he seems to have inaugurated the series of twenty-two canvases at Monet's prompting.
Richard R. Brettell


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05/20/08 Vegan Hot-Dogs in Your Town
Animal Friends is joining the World Vegetarian Week campaign and invites to a hot-dog
Launched by the largest animal rights organization, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the World Vegetarian Week is celebrated this year globally from May 19-25.
Animal Friends, as an organization for the promotion of vegetarian lifestyle, will mark the World Vegetarian Week by organizing tastings of vegan hot-dogs in Osijek, Slavonski Brod, Split, and Zagreb!
The tasting in Osijek will take place on Tuesday, May 20, at 12:00 noon at the Freedom Square. In Zagreb it will take place on Saturday, May 24, at 12:00 noon, on the corner of Varsavska ulica and Petar Preradovic Square, as well as in Split in Marmontova ulica and Slavonski Brod on Korzo.
Becoming a vegetarian has never been easier, which is evident from the fact that more than 150,000 Croatian citizens and million people around the Western world are vegetarians. Hundreds of vegetarian and vegan cookbooks have been published, with mouth-watering, aromatic and colorful recipes. There is an increasing offer of vegetarian products in chain stores, supermarkets, corner shops, restaurants, pizzerias, fast-food chains, pastry shops, bakeries, etc. Even though it is still insufficient, Croatian cities have been gradually joining the trend present in some of the largest cities in the world, such as New York, London, Vienna, or Berlin. Today, one can find a considerable offer of vegetarian and vegan sausages, salamis, hot-dogs, fritters, steaks, cheeses, yoghurts, milks, puddings, sandwiches, and pastries in Croatia, which should satisfy even the most fastidious gourmets.
Many people are already acquainted with the nutritional and ethical advantages of vegetarian lifestyle, but one should keep in mind that it is also a solution for global problems such as famine and environmental pollution.
The huge demand for meat and meat products kills more than 55 billion farm animals yearly. To be able to feed all these animals, it is necessary to use large amounts of pesticides and artificial fertilizers in order to produce the required amount of grains. Moreover, the limited resources of drinking water are overexploited, which causes the underground waters to dry up. The arable surfaces used to produce food for these animals could be used for the production of human food and could feed three times more people globally than there are today on planet Earth.
Intensive cattle breeding produces large amount of methane, which is emitted into the atmosphere and results in 40% more global warming than that which is caused by all global traffic together, while the continual destruction of forests in order to create new pastures and arable land is going on even while you are reading this text. Sustainable food production would exclude breeding animals for food, which would preserve bio-diversity and at the same time ensure a sufficient amount of food for all people and all the wildlife.
With our World Vegetarian Week campaigns, Animal Friends wishes to draw public attention to the advantages of the nutritional choice that we can make. Animal Friends wishes to encourage Croatian citizens to buy vegetarian products and enjoy the tasty and imaginative cruelty-free recipes, and Croatian shop-owners to enlarge their offer of vegetarian food. Animal Friends also wishes to encourage the Croatian media to speak openly of a vegetarian/vegan lifestyle and its advantages for ourselves, for the planet on which we live, and for the animals we share this planet with.
This approach will make us feel good – inside and out!
For more information on meatless nutrition, please visit www.prijatelji-zivotinja.hr, www.vegekit.com, www.masovnoubijanje.com.


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The Madernassa Pear has its origins in the town of Vezza d'Alba - it's a small pear with a crisp flesh. While you can eat it raw, its flavours are enhanced by cooking. You will most often find it poached whole in Moscato or made into a pear conserve.
I've decided to take a savoury route and combine it with a few other local ingredients - Gorgonzola cheese and hazelnuts to create this Pear and Gorgonzola Risotto.
1 red onion, finely diced
1 cup risotto rice (I used Aquarello)
2 madernassa pears, peeled, cored and diced
vegetable stock, on a roiling boil
150 grams gorgonzola cheese
roasted hazelnuts, roughly chopped
Put a generous knob of butter and a little drizzle of olive oil into a pan and place over a low heat - when the butter has melted, add the onion. Cook gently until the onion has softened but not coloured.
Increase the heat slightly then tip in the rice, stirring well to ensure the rice is well coated - cook for a minute before adding a spoonful of hot stock. The stock should sizzle when it hits the pan. Once the stock has been absorbed add another spoonful. Continue this process for about 5 minutes before adding the diced pears.
Keep adding stock and when you feel that the rice is just about ready, stir through the gorgonzola and the final ladle of stock. Keep stirring until the cheese has melted. Let the risotto sit for a minute before serving.
Top each serving with a good sprinkling of roasted hazelnuts.


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Winter Wardrobe
accessories, bag, blacks, blazer, blogs, blouse, bright orange, budget, catalogs, coat, coats, color story, culling, emerald green, essentials, gaps, gloves, go-to looks, graphic prints, grays, inspiration, jeans, jewel tones, khaki, knits, less is more, lifestyle, long sleeve dress, look-books, magenta, maroon, masculine, materials, minimalism, navy, neutral, nudes, occaion, outfits, palette, pastels, pictures, planning, preferences, quality, research, sapphire blue, scenarios, shoes, silhouettes, social calendar, sports luxe, styles, styling, sweaters, tips, trends, vivid red, wardrobe cleanup, whites, winter wardrobe
Tips for Planning Your Fall/Winter Wardrobe You may be in denial, but there's no changing the facts; autumn has arrived. Which means that winter is just around the corner. Let's face it, you don't want to say goodbye to your bikinis, floral skirts, sundresses and of course Read More


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- City Fajr Shuruq Duhr Asr Magrib Isha
- Dubai 05:27 06:40 12:34 15:52 18:23 19:37
Using tech to work while you drive is a great concept. But for the time being, it's widely accepted that sending and checking e-mail or texting while behind the wheel is very unsafe.
The temptation is great, of course, to sneak a peak at your Blackberry or iPhone to check messages or to take a call, especially when stuck in stop-and-go traffic, even though it is illegal to do so in many states and despite the tremendous risk. According to the results of a Pew Research Center survey, 27 percent of all American adults sent or read text messages while driving in 2009.
However, General Motors and Ford are developing alternatives they say will allow drivers to continue working safely while behind the wheel. With voice-enabled commands, drivers should eventually be able to check e-mail or text without posing dangerous risks to themselves or others, Ford and GM say.
Ford's Sync infotainment system currently allows for selected smartphone applications to run on a dashboard console. At the Consumer Electronics Show earlier in January, for example, Ford unveiled its MyFord Touch for Sync. The system, among other things, allows drivers to select music and routes for GPS-guided navigation on dual 4.2-inch LCD screens with corresponding five-way button steering wheel controls and an 8-inch touchscreen. But specific to office and work applications, Ford's Sync should allow drivers to do a lot more during the coming years, company executives say.
Within three to five years, Ford expects to develop an application for Sync that will read e-mail and text messages out loud as they are received, the company told PCWorld. The system should also allow drivers to dictate e-mails and text messages into the on-board computer hands-free while driving.
GM says it is developing a voice communications app for Android mobile phones that will let drivers send and receive text messages and Facebook updates using only their voices. The app uses a Bluetooth connection between drivers' phones and their vehicles.
GM's voice-activated Android system converts incoming SMS text messages and Facebook updates from text to synthetic speech with the app. The messages are then sent via Bluetooth to the car's speakers. Drivers can respond by voice through the in-vehicle microphone by selecting among a list of defined messages, such as "Yes," "No," and "Driving." It is also possible for the system to memorize custom messages, which are transcribed into text or posted as audio clips on Facebook, GM said. For Facebook updates, the driver can say "Like" to like a friend's update.
For text messages, the "Call Back" voice command automatically dials the phone number associated with the incoming message. It's also possible to set an automatic reply to all incoming messages, such as: "I'm on the road until 3 p.m. and can get back to you then."
The system will require a mobile phone running Android 2.2 or higher, a GM vehicle with built-in Bluetooth, or a vehicle equipped with a new OnStar system when it becomes commercially available. GM said it's planning the full launch for later in the first half of 2011 through the Android Market, while pricing has yet to be disclosed.
The voice-activated systems Ford and GM are developing remain limited compared to the functionality that PC and even mobile phone-based applications offer, of course. But in an area long-dominated by luxury-car brands such as Audi, BMW, Lexus, Mercedes, and Lexus, it is likely that Ford's and GM's upcoming in-car technologies will set the bar higher for in-car office apps that could also be available for an affordable price.
Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.


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Hard News: Budget 2011: While you wait
63 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 2 3 Newer→ Last
Caleb D'Anvers, in reply to
It really used to grind my gears when friends of mine whose parents had multi million dollar farms would be getting full student allowances ...
Uh, yeah. My (then) best friend at University had a property-developer father who operated a similar set of tax dodges. This was back in the '90s, so the benefit to him in terms of allowance was only something like $88 a week, but the whole process seemed so craven and dishonest that it made me finally realize that said friend and I had divergent moral values and it was perhaps time I moved on. I believe he now manages a multi-billion-dollar investment fund at a major insurance company in the City of London ...
Russell Brown, in reply to
And it wasn't the day for offering concrete policy alternatives – sometimes you just have to make the point that the government's recipe is bankrupt and leave it there.
I think David Cunliffe's point that you can't present an alternative without knowing what the numbers are is entirely valid.
Also, I think Labour should hire someone to take the graphs Cunliffe has been posting at Red Alert and work them into a killer Keynote presentation for him to deliver to as many roomfuls of people as he can. I regard Cunliffe's recent efforts in arguing from evidence as a rather cheering development for the Labour Party.
Email Twitter
it made me finally realize that said friend and I had divergent moral values and it was perhaps time I moved on. I believe he now manages a multi-billion-dollar investment fund at a major insurance company in the City of London …
Watch out. He'll be a cabinet minister in a dozen or so years.
Sacha, in reply to
a killer Keynote presentation
do you really see him as a Mac user?
giovanni tiso, in reply to
Email Web
I regard Cunliffe's recent efforts in arguing from evidence as a rather cheering development for the Labour Party.
Here he is on the budget on Checkpoint.
nzlemming, in reply to
Email Twitter
That's nice work. Thanks.
nzlemming, in reply to
Email Twitter
The RoNS is only supposed to be $11B, which is coincidentally the same amount as JonKey reckoned he could get from selling off some assets.
I think Labour should hire someone to take the graphs Cunliffe has been posting at Red Alert
Cunliffe's deficit predictions back from 2008 weren't based on Treasury forecasts were they? That might be a bit risky.
Has he tried to reconcile his claims that National is borrowing $380m a week to pay for tax cuts to the rich when his own graph shows this not to be the case. That the earthquakes and financial crisis have made by far the largest contribution to the govts financial problems.
I'm all for evidence, when there's evidence.
Steve Barnes, in reply to
The RoNS is only supposed to be $11B
I couldn't help thinking "That's an awful lot to pay for Barker and Corbett"
Sacha, in reply to
"That's an awful lot to pay for Barker and Corbett"
Their benefit-cost ratio would compare extremely well with Joyce's vain follies
Trust me the and live in hope that the recovery is just around the corner; the budget is a work of optimism largely in response to voter research and polling. The end result will be that National retains the treasury benches.
Hooray for them and Hooray for us.
Bart Janssen, in reply to
And the second graph on this associated post is quite chilling.
At the local level every year our senior executives have predicted revenue increases that are exponential. Every year revenue tracks exactly where it tracked for the past 20 years. Every year at the halfway point in the financial year there is a panicked e-mail, saying revenues are below forecast and we (you) will have to sacrifice. In our case that means no travel to conferences and no new equipment.
This National government appears to have gone to the same seminars as our managers. sigh.
Matthew Poole, in reply to
I'm going to deduct my mortgage interest against my income as an expense too. I'm also going to deduct my petrol bill as I drive to and from work as expenses, along with the clothes I have to purchase for work, and food I need to eat in order to be able to carry out the functions of my job.
Unless of course I'm not allowed to live by the same rules of others.
The rules as they apply to other wage/salary earners do apply to you. And those rules allow none of those things to be deducted.
If you're self-employed, those things are deductible inasmuch as they're unavoidable expenses incurred wholly in the pursuit of generating your income. Clothing and food mostly don't count, and even when wage/salary earners could deduct expenses they were still mostly excluded from being deductible.
Farmers are covered by the same rules as apply to any other business, and that includes the self-employed. Getting bitchy and snarky doesn't change the fact that the rules as applied to agriculture are no different from the deductibility rules that apply to others.
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DIRECTIONS AND ITINERARY Located at the heart of the Limoges / Brive / Périgueux triangle, Lanouaille is 50 kms away from each of those cities. At Lanouaille, at the main roundabout, take the Thiviers direction, 500 meters later turn left towards La Vergne. Then another 1.2 km and follow the Haras de la Vergne signs. Print your itinerary Have a good trip and welcome to the Haras de la Vergne USEFUL ADRESSES
TOURISM I you have some times don't miss the following sites: At 10 to 30 minutes by car you can visit: -the castle of excideuil -castle and gold gallery of Jumilhac -Castle, garderns, and medicine museum at Hautefort -Foie gras museum at Thiviers. - Auvézère canyon -Truffle museum at Sorges -Brantôme and Bourdeilles Medieval village of Ségur le Château Pompadour - horse town -A little farther, but so lovely : Ségur le château and Collonges la Rouge |


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A Game of Thrones-Chapter 22
Arya II | ||||||
A Game of Thrones chapter | ||||||
POV | Arya Stark | |||||
Place | King's Landing | |||||
Page | US HC (Other versions) | |||||
Chapter chronology (All) | ||||||
Arya I ↑ | ||||||
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↓ Arya III |
Unhappy at King's Landing, Arya abandons her dinner. Her father comes to her room to talk to her and sees she has her sword out. After a long talk, he decides not to take the sword away. Several days later, Arya meets her new dancing master.
When her father enters the Small Hall after dinner has already begun Arya can tell that he has been fighting with the council again. Jory Cassel asks about the tourney everyone is talking about, and Eddard asks if anyone is talking about the Hand's displeasure with the whole idea.
Sansa is tremendously excited by the prospect of a tourney and begs to be allowed to attend. When Septa Mordane mentions his family will be expected to attend, Eddard agrees to ensure that seats are provided for both Sansa and Arya. Knowing that Prince Joffrey will be there, Arya insists she does not want to attend a stupid tourney. When Sansa taunts that Arya would not be wanted anyway, Eddard loses his temper and threatens to change his mind.
Quickly regaining his composure, Eddard excuses himself. Once he is gone, his guardsmen start talking excitedly about the tourney. No one talks to Arya but she likes it that way. Back in Winterfell she had enjoyed listening to the men talk, but now the sounds irritate her because she blames them all, even her father, for doing nothing to save Lady and Mycah.
After looking disgustedly at her cold food and the people around her, Arya pushes away from the table. When Septa Mordane insists that Arya hasn't eaten, she dashes away. She runs to her chamber and locks herself in. She digs to the bottom of her chest where her sword Needle is hidden. Arya thinks that if she could climb like her brother Bran she could steal some food and run away and that if Jon Snow was there she would not feel so lonely.
A soft knock on her door proves to be her father, who says they need to talk and asks politely to come in. From the way he talks, Arya is ashamed to realize he is more sad than angry. When she lets him in, her father immediately notices her sword and asks whose it is. Arya explains that it is hers and her father asks to see it. Her father notices Mikken's mark on the blade and remarks that if his nine-year-old daughter can be armed from his own forge without his knowledge, how can he be expected to rule the Seven Kingdoms?
Eddard asks who gave her the sword but Arya stays silent, not wanting to betray Jon. Her father accepts this but tells Arya that a sword is not a toy. When asked what she thinks Septa Mordane would say about her playing with a sword, Arya insists she was not playing. Eddard states that he should break the sword over his knee. Arya responds that "Needle wouldn't break." The sword having a name amuses her father, who claims that Arya reminds him of his sister, Lyanna, who might have carried a sword if their father had allowed it. Arya is surprised when Eddard says she looks like her aunt, who was always described as beautiful, something never said of Arya.
Eddard asks if Arya knows anything about how to use a sword, and she replies with the advice Jon gave her: "Stick 'em with the pointy end." She tells how she was trying to learn and sadly adds that she asked Mycah to practice with her. In grief she starts to sob against her father's chest. He tells her that Mycah's death was not her fault. Arya sobs that she hates them all: the Queen, the Hound, Joffrey, and the King. Then she adds that Joffrey lied, and that she also hates Sansa.
Eddard says that everyone lies and that he does not believe that Nymeria ran off. Arya then exclaims that Jory promised not to tell. Eddard informs her that Jory did not tell but that he had figured it out, because even a blind man could tell that the wolf would not have left willingly. Arya then explains how she and Jory had to throw rocks to drive the wolf away. She then asks her father if she did the right thing and Eddard assures her that she did.
Eddard then tells Arya that winter is coming. He explains to her how wolves stick together, and that in the winter a lone wolf dies. Now there are enemies threatening the Starks, so they must stick together like a pack of wolves and it is time for her to start growing up. He hands Arya back her sword, saying she can keep it; he only asks that she not stick her sister.
Three days later, Arya is sent to the Small Hall by the steward. She is met by Syrio Forel, a former First Sword of Braavos. He tells her that he is her dancing master, and throws her a wooden sword, which she cannot catch. Unperturbed, Syrion tells Arya that the next day she will be there at midday and catch the blade. She picks the practice sword up as instructed and finds that it is very heavy. When she complains about the weight, Syrio explains that it is heavy to make her strong. Then he fixes her grip, telling her not to squeeze too tight. When Arya says that she might drop it, Syrio tells her that the sword must become a part of her arm, and that she cannot drop a part of her arm.
When Syrio calls her a boy for the third time Arya objects. He insists that it does not matter; a sword has no gender. He then explains that what he will be teaching her is not the hacking and hammering iron dance of Westeros, but the swift and sudden Water Dance of Braavos,. Then he tells her to try to strike him, and she tries unsuccessfully for four hours until every muscle is sore. The next day the real work begins.
Character List
Appearing: |
Mentioned: |
Events: |
Houses: |
Places: |
Terms: |
External links
- Humorous review of the chapter
- Summary and analyses of the chapter by Leigh Butler.
- Summary of the chapter on Tower of the Hand.


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Home | Reviews | Extras | Forums |
AD PoliceSynopsisAD Police Files is a prequel to the series Bubblegum Crisis and Bubblegum Crash. There is also a new AD Police TV series, which has a completely different cast and characters. The year is 2027 in Mega Tokyo, six years before the Knight Sabers will make their debut. Boomers (artificial humans) are still a relatively new advancement, and the implementation and integration of boomers into society is still a bit buggy -- sometimes fatally so. Whenever a boomer incident occurs, though, there is the ADvanced Police, a special force trained to deal with boomer crimes. Leon McNichol is a rookie in the AD Police, and is just starting to become exposed to the horrors and tragedies one finds every day in Mega Tokyo. He and his veteran partner, Gina Marceau, slowly learn about the ever-fading line that separates man from machine. ReviewIf these are the best files the AD Police could come up with, I think I'll go to a different filing cabinet. Okay -- AD Police Files isn't that bad, but it certainly isn't that good, either, and it definitely doesn't live up to the hype it creates for itself. Let's take the art and animation, for starters. The art isn't that bad, but there's really nothing there to separate it from the scads of mecha-type titles out there already. The animation is simply average (when an opening sequence fails to spark my interest, it's lost half the battle already), which is below par for a title of this genre. The music is all right, though, and in true Bubblegum Crisis style, each tape ends with two or three music videos featuring (violent) clips from each episode. The plots themselves, though, are pretty interesting, with plenty of menace and malice to make you shift uncomfortably in your seat. You will not see Nene Romanova cutely complaining about her weight, if you get my drift. Twisted souls and demented homunculi grace the screen nicely, and actually steal the show much more than the generic AD Police ever do. Leon's all right and all (thank goodness Daley Wong doesn't show), but the show really belongs to the Boomers, who are, in truth, the most developed of characters. Not too bad, if you don't have too much else to do. If you're a BGC junkie, you'll definitely enjoy this one. Other people might want to save this one until they run out of other things to watch. Recommended Audience: Definitely not for kids. Not only does every episode contain numerous scenes of graphic violence, but the series also contains a dark, sexual spin inappropriate for kids. Of course, non-casual nudity and profanity are also to be found throughout. Version(s) Viewed: VHS, Japanese with English subtitles Review Status: Full (3/3) AD Police © 1991 Artmic / Bandai Visual / Youmex |
© 1996-2015 THEM Anime Reviews. All rights reserved. |


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THURSDAY, May 21, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Some pregnant women with COVID-19 do become severely ill, and the risk may be elevated for those who were obese or had conditions like asthma before pregnancy, a new study suggests.
As with all things COVID-19, researchers have had limited information on whether pregnancy puts women at any greater risk of severe illness -- or whether infection complicates pregnancy.
There is still a lot to learn, experts said. But the new study, reporting on 46 pregnant women in Washington state, begins to give some insight.
"The advance of this study is, we have over 40 women with symptomatic COVID-19, and we know what happened to them," said senior researcher Dr. Kristina Adams Waldorf, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Most of the women had milder cases, but nearly 15% developed more severe breathing problems. All were hospitalized, and one woman who had asthma ended up in the intensive care unit.
In nearly all cases, the women were overweight or obese before pregnancy, and half had asthma or other conditions such as high blood pressure.
"So the same risk factors for severe COVID-19 that we've been seeing in non-pregnant people are also surfacing in the pregnant population," Adams Waldorf said.
She and her colleagues reported on the cases May 18 in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology.
Since the early days of the coronavirus outbreak, many pregnant women have been asking how the infection could affect them, according to Dr. Elizabeth Langen, who reviewed the findings. She specializes in high-risk maternal-fetal medicine at the University of Michigan's Von Voigtlander Women's Hospital in Ann Arbor.
But doctors have had limited information to answer those questions -- including whether the coronavirus carries any greater risk for pregnant women. With influenza, for example, it's known that pregnant women are more likely than non-pregnant people to develop complications; and the infection can raise the risk of preterm labor.
Langen said the new report -- what doctors call a case series -- is "a good start" in learning more.
But, she said, it cannot give a sense of the prevalence of severe COVID-19 among pregnant women in the general population.
Of the 46 pregnant women who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, 43 were tested because they had symptoms. Nearly 15% developed breathing problems that landed them in the hospital.
"That's 1 in 8," Adams Waldorf said, "which to me is high."
Pregnancy itself puts some degree of stress on the lungs, she explained. If a woman is also obese, or has an underlying health condition like asthma, that adds further stress.
Another big question is whether having COVID-19 during pregnancy can affect the baby. Of the women in this report, eight gave birth during the study period. That included two women who had a cesarean section, in part, to relieve their breathing difficulties.
That, Adams Waldorf said, shows the illness can affect the timing of delivery.
The risk of moms-to-be passing the virus to the fetus is a "still evolving" area of research, Langen added.
Last week, Canadian doctors reported on a newborn that likely became infected with the coronavirus while still in the womb. The good news is that baby was born healthy and did not develop COVID-19.
For now, Adams Waldorf said that pregnant women should take the recommended steps to protect themselves from infection: Stay home as much as possible, practice social distancing when they do go out, and wash hands frequently.
She also recommended that women opt for telemedicine visits when possible, especially if they are obese or have underlying health conditions.
As for childbirth in the midst of the pandemic, Langen said hospitals are "working hard to make labor and delivery safe."
Some, including the University of Washington, are also screening women for SARS-CoV-2 when they arrive for delivery.
Last month, doctors at two hospitals in New York City -- the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak -- reported on their initial findings: Testing showed that 1 in 7 women who delivered between March 22 and April 4 had the coronavirus infection. But most -- 88% -- had no symptoms.
More information
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has advice for women who are pregnant or breastfeeding.
SOURCES: Kristina Adams Waldorf, M.D., professor, obstetrics and gynecology, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle; Elizabeth Langen, M.D., associate professor, obstetrics and gynecology, University of Michigan, Michigan Medicine, Von Voigtlander Women's Hospital, Ann Arbor; May 18, 2020, American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, online


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Reference: privacy-policy/20190306
Updated on 06 Mar 2019.
Versions: 11 Aug 2023 , 23 Feb 2023 , 26 Jan 2023 , 27 Oct 2021 , 31 Mar 2021 , 16 Dec 2020 , 03 Nov 2020 , 15 Oct 2019 , 06 Mar 2019 , 18 Sep 2018 , 20 Jun 2017 .


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Cover of Adrian Martin's new book, Last day Every Day (Punctum Books, 2012) |
Where is film analysis at today? What is cinema theory up to, behind our backs? The field, as professionally defined (at least in the Anglo-American academic world), is presently divided between contextual historians who turn to broad formations of modernity, and stylistic connoisseurs who call for a return to old-fashioned things like authorial vision, tone, and mise en scène. But there are other, vital, inventive currents happening — in criticism, on the Internet, in small magazines, and renegade conferences everywhere — which we are not hearing much about in any official way. Last Day Every Day shines a light on one of these exciting new avenues.Film Studies For Free urges its readers to go and check out the free download of Adrian Martin's important new book as described above. It is published by (the very wonderful) Punctum Books. Please support them by purchasing an incredibly reasonably priced paper copy as a lovely gift for the film scholars you love, or at the very least by ordering copies for your libraries.
Is there a way to bring together, in a refreshed manner, textual logic, hermeneutic interpretation, theoretical speculation, and socio-political history? A way to break the deadlock between classical approaches that sought organic coherence in film works, and poststructuralist approaches that exposed the heterogeneity of all texts and scattered the pieces to the four winds? A way to attend to the minute materiality of cinema, while grasping and contesting the histories imbricated in every image and sound?
That is all. Thank you! And a very big thank you to Adrian and Punctum.
This wonderful tome has also been added to FSFF's permanent listing of free Film Studies ebooks.


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About Me
- Category: The Plus Side: A Weight Loss Blog
- Posted On:
My Story:
I have always been a "Big Girl" and all the life aspects that go along with that (not fitting into social groups, teasing, etc.). Therefore, in my lifetime, I have tried so many ways to lose weight: Weight Watchers, Atkins, South Beach, etc. The list could go on and on; however, as I got older and had my babies my weight really started to get out of control.
My weight defined who I was. I was judged from the outside in instead of the inside out. My knees hurt; my feet would swell up by the end of the day due to all the extra weight – so much physical pain from being so obese. My level of denial was very high. I never consciously put the puzzle together that what I needed to do was lose weight and be active. I knew what the scale was saying but I just knew it was lying to me. I did not look my weight…so I thought.
Luckily, at the age of 38 and my highest weight of 284 pounds (BMI 45.8), I realized that I had a lifetime of heart issues, physical limitations and the fear of my kids and husband being ashamed by their obese mom/wife to look forward to. I decided to make a last-ditch effort by choosing gastric banding. The band has been a literal lifesaving choice for me.
My interest in Bariatrics began when I had Lap-Band surgery and wanted to help others to be just as successful. I believe very strongly in helping others achieve their weight loss goals, physical and mentally. I was very blessed to be given the opportunity to work with other bariatric patients as the bariatric coordinator at Atlantic General Hospital.
Thoughts to Live By:
Success is not a race, be patient.
Success leads to success.
Success is always a work in progress.
Success doesn't come to you--you go to it.
Success is a journey, not a destination. Focus on the process.
Some people dream about success... while others wake up and work hard at it.
Success is achieved and maintained by those who try – and keep trying.
Every day is a good day to SUCCEED!
If at first you don't succeed, try, try again


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The khakis are a surprise. Rumors have it that he's now a fashion plate. That he reads Women's Wear Daily, that he knows what's on the runways, and that, like a carnival guesser, he can identify the items you're wearing by label and price, from head to toe.
So when Ray Washburne, the new co-owner, general partner, and president of Highland Park Village, lurches through the door of the ritzy shopping center's Mi Cocina restaurant, you figure the rumors have it wrong. Because he's not wearing Zegna or Tom Ford—or, if he is, he's not wearing them correctly. The outfit he's chosen on this Tuesday afternoon is straight out of a Casual Friday handbook: brown loafers, khaki pants, a blue and white checkered shirt with a white t-shirt peeking from beneath the collar.
Then again, the garments appear to be quality. Expensive, even. Plus, they fit about as well as can be expected on a man who is 6-foot-5, long-armed, high-waisted, and, at 50, has a burgeoning midriff. And after Washburne folds himself into a booth at the restaurant—one of 15 Mi Cocinas he owns along with his brother Dick and the fruitcake magnate Bob McNutt—he explains that the rumors are, in fact, true. Sort of. Yes, he has read WWD. Yes, he has some concept of what the glitterati are wearing on Rue de Rivoli. But that's not because he's interested in fashion. That's because he's interested in real estate, the real estate he's sitting on right now. "We've got a very high quality tenant in Highland Park Village," Washburne says. "And it's important that we understand the business they're in."
"We," in the case of Highland Park Village, is Washburne and his wife, Heather Hill Washburne, plus Heather's sister Elisa Summers and Elisa's husband, Stephen. The sisters are daughters of Al Hill Jr., who is the son of the late Margaret Hunt Hill, who was the daughter of Lyda Bunker Hunt and the legendary oilionaire H.L. Hunt, at one time the richest man on earth. But you probably knew that already.
Last May, the two Hunt-Hill heiresses and their husbands became only the fourth owners in the 79-year history of Highland Park Village. They bought the property from the descendants of another local business legend, Henry S. Miller. The purchase price: $171 million, or $684 for each of the shopping center's 250,000 square feet. As far as anyone knows, that's the highest price ever paid in Dallas for that much retail real estate. Probably it is the highest price ever paid for an existing shopping center anywhere in the Southwest.
The top-dollar sale might never have happened if not for a rabbit-eared Mi Cocina server. "I was having dinner here with my wife one night," Washburne says between quick sips of an Arnold Palmer. "And one of my waiters had heard someone talking about how they were thinking about buying Highland Park Village. So I happened to see Henry Miller III walking by, and I called him over. He pulls up a chair, puts down a shopping bag, and I say, 'Are you selling?'
"He said, 'We're not promoting it, but we've had an offer come to us, and we'll know in the next couple days if it goes through.'
"So I called him the next morning," Washburne continues, telling the story in an excited rush. "The deal had dropped. I said, 'I'll be in your office in five minutes.' I hurried over there, we made a handshake deal, and a few months later, the contract went through and I bought it."
At least that's how the story goes the first time I hear Washburne tell it. As his friends will tell you, he's a talker. A fast talker. And a storyteller. It's a trait that has made him popular on the Park Cities cocktail party circuit. "Ray loves to spin yarn," says one Washburne associate. Still, sometimes you wonder if Washburne isn't playing around with details for effect. Because, sure, it's possible that someone at Mi Cocina was talking too loudly over their chicken con hongos. And, sure, it's possible that, just like that, two oil heiresses and their husbands agreed to come up with more money than any of them had ever spent on anything before, including Washburne, who has been buying and selling real estate since he got his commercial real estate license at the age of 19. But it seems just as likely that Washburne, a tireless networker, heard from sources closer to the potential transaction that the Millers might be open to an offer. Whichever. Washburne's "overheard" yarn is certainly more fun to spin.
And fun is something Ray Washburne seems to be having a lot of as he embarks on a multiyear renovation of Highland Park Village. He has changes both dramatic and discreet in mind for the shopping center, alterations he thinks will make the place more inviting than it has ever been and, eventually, more profitable. But even though Washburne is already prettying up the grounds with new landscaping and completely making over the center's 75-year-old theater, he's in no hurry to make Highland Park Village's bottom line more attractive. Which is saying something for a guy who put himself through SMU selling 6-foot-long swaths of carpet to freshman girls and has been hustling for a buck ever since. "This is not a normal real estate deal where you buy something, create value, and sell it," Washburne says, unfurling himself from the Mi Cocina booth. "This is something I'm creating with the intent of it being in the family for generations, something we'll leave to our kids and grandkids. So we have time to do this right.
"Come on," he adds, charging out the restaurant's front door. "Let's go look around."
To understand what's got Ray Washburne so excited, we need to talk about jewelry. And accounting.
Washburne says he and his family paid a historically high price for Highland Park Village because it is a "gem" that needs "polishing." Or, sometimes, an "emerald" that needs "shining." Other times, an "heirloom" that needs "safekeeping."
The shopping center certainly has been an heirloom for the Henry S. Miller family, which bought it in 1976 for $5 million. Miller was just the third owner of the center, which opened in 1931. Miller convinced luxe brands to set up in the center—bringing Hermès, among others, to a city that was awash in oil money. His changes paid off. Miller's $5 million purchase price in 1976 roughly translates to $18 million in today's dollars. That means Highland Park Village has appreciated 850 percent in value during the 36 years between buyers.
This is where the accounting comes in. Highland Park Village has 200,000 square feet of retail space and nearly 50,000 square feet of office space on floors above the stores. When Washburne et al. took over, average retail rents in the center were about $36 a square foot. Washburne wants to quadruple that rate for most of his tenants, to $120 a square foot or more. Put on your green eyeshades and figure the difference: 200,000 x 36 = $72 million annually, whereas 200,000 x 120 = $240 million.
Trouble is, $120 a square foot is about three times more than the highest rate charged by any other shopping center in Dallas. And maybe you've noticed that there's a recession going on. "When we looked at the quality of tenant we have and their sales per square foot, I realized that our competition isn't in Dallas," Washburne says, squinting in the sun outside Mi Cocina. "It is not Inwood Village, and it is not Preston Center. Our competition is Worth Avenue in Palm Beach, Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles, Americana Manhasset in Long Island, and SoHo in New York. And, in those places, rents are $150 to $200 a square foot or more."
A lot more in some places. On Rodeo Drive, for instance, rents range from $200 to $400 per square foot. Yet retail analysts say sales per square foot there aren't substantially higher than the $1,000 to $1,500 per square foot that Washburne says Highland Park Village's high-end retailers bring in. Which may explain why the tony shopping center's most elegant tenants have not balked at Washburne's rent hikes. "If you went into a high-end steakhouse and they had a $2 entrée, you'd think something was wrong with it," Washburne says. "We looked at this the same way. Charging a higher rent here makes you more legitimate in the eyes of the retailer. It convinces them that you're selling them something of real value."
Well, not everyone is happy. Banana Republic, for one, chose not to renew its lease. Washburne says that decision was voluntary. But consider the chain retailer's options. Banana Republic occupied 8,000 square feet at the west end of Highland Park Village, making it the biggest retailer on the site. It paid $30 a square foot and faced a quadrupling of that rate—to a rent of nearly $1 million a month. That's almost 14,000 pairs of straight fit corduroy pants. Banana Republic moved out.
In its wake, Washburne is carving up the store into five separate spaces. Christian Louboutin, Diane von Furstenberg, and Vilebrequin have so far moved in, and a woman's hair salon is expected to follow next year. All are paying Washburne's higher rates. But with only a few hundred square feet, Christian Louboutin needs to sell about two pairs of its $900 heels per day to pay rent.
Still, there's a catch. The Village isn't just home to Jimmy Choo and Hermès and Harry Winston. It is also home to Tom Thumb and Starbucks and a theater and Deno's shoe repair. None of those places can afford $120 a square foot any more than Banana Republic can. But Washburne isn't expecting any more "voluntary" departures, and he's willing to carve a lot out of his potential bottom line to make sure of that. "We're going to have loss leaders, but those will also be the things that drive people to come here," Washburne says.
Take the Village Theatre, for instance. It's the first thing that the store managers ask about after Washburne sails through the door at the Carolina Herrera store just a few doors down from the theater's construction site. He is also queried on the subject inside the Village Barber Shop, where little Ray Willets Washburne got his first haircut and where his three young children have gotten theirs. As he crosses the parking lot near Patrizio, someone even shouts at him: "Hey, Ray, when's that theater going to be done?" "December," Washburne hollers back in Texas twang. "I'll send you an invitation, get you a real good seat. Right down front."
It may be a popular topic of conversation in the shopping center and surrounding neighborhood, but the Village Theatre is an accounting disaster, even with a mezzanine-level restaurant where Top Chef contestant Tre Wilcox will do the cooking. "It won't bring in a lot of revenue," Washburne says. "So, if that was the only building I owned in this center, I'd turn it into retail. But because we own everything, we just got rid of four small theaters and we're going to have two big ones. We'll have stadium seating and all the latest equipment. If we're going to have a theater and it is going to be our donation to the neighborhood, we decided we should make it the best theater it can be.
"I can really appreciate this because I grew up here," he says. "Highland Park Village isn't just a shopping center; it is a community asset. And we're going to keep it that way."


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Washington, April 5 (ANI): A person's memory declines at a faster rate in the last two-and-a-half years of life than at any other time after memory problems first begin, researchers of two new studies revealed.
Keeping mentally fit through board games or reading may be the best way to preserve memory during late life, suggests the second study.
Researchers at Rush University Medical were behind both studies.
"In our first study, we used the end of life as a reference point for research on memory decline rather than birth or the start of the study," said Robert S. Wilson, PhD, study author and neuropsychologist at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.
For the study, 174 Catholic priests, nuns and monks without memory problems had their memory tested yearly for six to 15 years before death. After death, scientists examined their brains for hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease called plaques and tangles.
The study found that at an average of about two-and-a-half years before death, different memory and thinking abilities tended to decline together at rates that were 8 to 17 times faster than before this terminal period. Higher levels of plaques and tangles were linked to an earlier onset of this terminal period but not to rate of memory decline during it.
The second study, also conducted by Wilson, showed that keeping mentally fit through board games or reading might be the best way to preserve memory during late life.
The study, which focused on mental activities, involved 1,076 people with an average age of 80 who were free of dementia. Participants underwent yearly memory exams for about five years.
They reported how often they read the newspaper, wrote letters, visited a library and played board games such as chess or checkers. Frequency of these mental activities was rated on a scale of one to five, one meaning once a year or less and five representing every day or almost every day.
"The results suggest a cause and effect relationship: that being mentally active leads to better cognitive health in old age," said Wilson.
The results showed that people's participation in mentally stimulating activities and their mental functioning declined at similar rates over the years. The researchers also found that they could predict participants' level of cognitive functioning by looking at their level of mental activity the year before but that level of cognitive functioning did not predict later mental activity.
The findings have been published in the April 4 online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. (ANI)
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Dewayne Bryant, a Jersey City resident who works the overnight shift at a local 24-hour McDonald's, is ready for a change. He has been on the job for nearly three years.
"I'm looking for something else," he said, while waiting for one of the cooks to make a fresh batch of fries. "I'm looking retail, sales, anything really."
Unlike some young men in his Greenville neighborhood, the 23-year-old has a high school diploma, no felony record, and a solid work history. Still, he said it has been challenging to find work that pays more than minimum wage that will enable him to earn enough money to move out of his mother's apartment into a place he might share with a roommate or his girlfriend.
"Working here, I don't really get no skills that I can take anywhere other than another McDonald's or Burger King," said Bryant. He estimates he has applied for 30 or more jobs since June and has received no interest from prospective employers.
When asked if he has considered vocational school or an associate's degree, he said, "Well, yeah, kinda. But then, no, not really 'cause that takes money…I'm not really sure what I'm going to do."
A short time later, a friend of Bryant's who would only give his name as Jon Jon admitted he was in a worse position than his buddy. After dropping out of Dickinson High School years ago, Jon Jon never got his GED, has only done odd jobs, and is currently unemployed.
"I don't waste my time. There ain't nothin' out there," Jon Jon stated when asked what kind of jobs he's looking for.
Last week, Bloomberg.com reported that Jersey City topped a list of 20 municipalities that experienced he greatest increase in the number of well educated adults between 2000 and 2011. But the report masked an uglier statistic reported that same week by Crain's: With unemployment in Hudson County at 10.2 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, finding work in New Jersey's urban counties is tougher than in more suburban areas.
The state unemployment rate was 8.7 percent in June, higher than the national average of 7.6 percent.
High unemployment numbers
As the city attempts to deal with a spate of violent crime and gun violence, many residents have called on the administration of Mayor Steven Fulop to expand recreational activities for young people, especially teens, so that they have something to keep them occupied when they are not in school.
But other residents say the real answer to street violence will be found in better education, training programs and jobs for young adults like Jon Jon and Bryant.
"You got some kids out here, they're not all into trouble just yet. But the window to getting to them, to getting them on some kind of productive path is real short," said a Bruce Smart, a McDonald's customer who works in information and technology in the city. "We gotta get to them before they become idle, just hanging out on the street doing nothing, wasting their lives."
As Smart spoke, another customer, Rosalie Johnson, nodded in agreement. "I got one son in the military now and my daughter's in school in Delaware. But not everybody got those options. I told my kids to get out of Jersey City. I always told them that 'cause I saw there wasn't a lot out here for them unless they did something to get some skills so they could work in Newark or the city."
On Sept. 9, former New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey will begin his new post as the director of Jersey City's Employment and Training Commission, a position where he will be tasked with trying to help people like Jon Jon and Bryant get the skills they need to find work that allows them to advance in a vocation.
"On the one hand, there's a lot of opportunity in Jersey City, you see it in Ward E," said Johnson. "But it isn't like that everywhere. What I'd like to see is the city somehow get these companies that come here, that want to do business here, have training programs for our youth so they aren't just stuck sitting on some street corner or stuck working in McDonald's for the rest of their lives."
E-mail E. Assata Wright at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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The French state is examining the possibility of taking a stake in struggling carmaker PSA Peugeot Citroen , French daily Liberation reported on Friday, citing unnamed sources.
The newspaper said this was being treated as a "last-resort" plan in case Peugeot found itself unable to stem widening losses. It cited one government source as saying the state could take part in a capital increase if it became necessary.
Peugeot declined to comment.
On Thursday, the company slashed the book value of its plants and other automotive assets by 28 percent, in a writedown adding 4.13 billion euros ($5.53 billion) to its 2012 net loss to reflect Europe's worsening market outlook.
Last October, the French state said it would offer 7 billion euros of state loan guarantees to the company's financial arm, Banque PSA Finance.
(Reporting by Alice Cannet; Editing by Lionel Laurent)


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"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." ~ H.L. Mencken
Who Are the Real Terrorists?
By Per Bylund.
Exclusive to STR
What is fascinating in this day and age is how the definition of previously well-known concepts mysteriously have changed. I'm not thinking of e.g. the word "defense," which nowadays seems to have a much broader meaning and includes waging wars, occupying foreign nations, and having permanent military bases in almost 200 foreign countries. Not long ago these things would fit squarely in definitions of offense or aggression – but not anymore. Whereas I'm not talking about the definition of "defense," the topic for this article is necessarily and closely related to it.
Consider the case of Bradley Manning. In case you have not heard of him, this is the 22-year-old former Army intelligence analyst who leaked the "Collateral Murder" video, in which a US helicopter crew brutally slaughtered a group of Iraqi civilians believed to be insurgents, among them two Reuters journalists (clearly seen carrying their camera equipment). After being practically an idiot and bragging online about leaking the video and other documents through the WikiLeaks web site, Manning was identified by Army security, subsequently arrested, and is now facing 52 years in prison.
Now, I'm not talking about the contractual issue here – it is quite legit for an employer to require that employees do not reveal sensitive information about the business. But the case of Manning is special in so many ways: the employer is not a market actor, the labor services offered by employees are criminal according to any set of laws or morals were they committed without wearing the uniform, and the actions revealed were utterly immoral, possibly illegal (even by state standards!), and took place in occupied territory.
The war fought in Iraq is supposedly a "just war" supported in part by the moral argument that one should get rid of dictatorial leaders (unless they are American) and replace them with democracy/freedom (the politically correct dyad), and in part to enforce UN resolutions and get rid of the non-existent weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). One would expect that a just war is not only just in its purpose but also in its implementation. In other words, the horrible deeds revealed to the public by Manning should not be tolerated. So from the same perspective used to legitimize this war, Manning did a good thing – and is being punished.
In fact, if the war is truly fought to save a people from their dictator or save the world from a dictator with WMDs, then it would make sense to keep the war machine as transparent and open as democracies – the ideal – supposedly are. After all, the very object of the war is to relieve the world of an oppressive regime for the sake of freedom, democracy, and all that is valuable to man (but I repeat myself, since "democracy" is usually used in the politically correct discourse to denote all that is of value). Then it doesn't make sense to organize the war machine according to the same principle as the dictatorship one tries to get rid of.
It certainly doesn't make sense to punish anyone blowing the whistle on things not being right. Obviously, any well-meaning democracy would want its defensive forces to behave democratically (whatever that means) and not use undemocratic methods. If undemocratic methods are used, it would be in the interest of the country's leaders and the people, who theoretically have the true power, to find out and do something about it. Yet it seems in the case of Manning, nobody is happy about his very democratic, moral actions. No, he is regarded as an enemy, a traitor, and terrorist. Despite our high ideals of democracy, freedom, and equal rights, this man is persecuted and prosecuted as a simple criminal – for acting according to some of the most fundamental of these ideals.
This should tell us something about the state of things in our modern society. Not only are there different rules for different people, especially as pertains to a people and its leaders, respectively, but words have different meaning. A member of the ruling class who lies to the world is but doing his country a favor, protecting our liberties, and making a sacrifice for our national security. If you do the same, you will be thrown in jail for perjury or fraud. When a member of the ruling class decides to steal other people's money to finance a campaign of rape and murder in foreign lands, he is protecting us from terrorism. If you do the same, you will be thrown in jail or even put to death as a simple thief, rapist, and murderer.
Of course, there is a way around this: If you act in the name of the ruling class, wear their costumes, and blindly obey their slightest whim, then you are free from guilt. Manning, it seems, was not able to see the difference, and for this, he was mercilessly and without warning demoted to citizen. He should have learned that words have different meaning depending on who you are and who you work for, and that different acts mean different things: a murder is not a murder if you're wearing a uniform.
According to this logic, and Manning's citizen status, he should be punished as the terrorist he is. After all, if he is not a terrorist – who is?
"In case you have not heard of him, this is the 22-year-old former Army intelligence analyst who leaked the "Collateral Murder" video,"
Is he? Last I heard the evidence they had against him was testimony by a known criminal and relentless self-publicist. He may well be the Evan Pederick* of this case. The claims that Manning revealed 250,000 diplomatic messages is bizarre and truly incredible in the literal sense of the word. The Feds need a body, doesn't have to be the right one.
* Google "Hilton hotel bombing" to see what I mean.
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This was published 11 years ago
Australian surgeon sues Google over 'bankrupt' auto-complete
By Asher Moses
A Port Macquarie surgeon is suing Google for defamation over an auto-complete search suggestion that he believes has cost him clients.
Google has been involved in several lawsuits around the world in the past year revolving around its autocomplete suggestions and has increasingly been held responsible for content on its search pages.
The suit, filed by Dr Guy Hingston in the US district court in California, claims that when you type "Guy Hin ..." into Google the words "Guy Hingston bankrupt" appear in the auto-complete. He claims this is defamatory as he is not bankrupt.
Dr Hingston's Australian lawyers Beazley Singleton had written to Google Australia in December threatening legal action. The firm wrote Dr Hingston had "lost a number of patients and financiers [who] are refusing to deal with our client as a consequence of the reference on google which is associated with his name".
The complaint, seen by Fairfax Media, claims Dr Hingston's career as a breast surgeon depended on maintaining a good reputation which had been damaged after Google had shown him in a "false light". He is seeking at least $75,000 in damages plus court costs for the "significant harm and economic loss" caused by the matter.
According to a Port Macquarie News report from January 2009, an aviation group owned by Dr Hingston, CoastJet, closed its doors and went into administration two-and-a-half years after he bought it. He told the paper the main reason for CoastJet's demise — which reportedly resulted in the loss of 30 jobs — was the loss of a $2.8 million deposit on two new jets when American company Eclipse Aviation went into bankruptcy.
An April 2009 Port Macquarie News report said CoastJet, loaded with debt, was being bailed out by a Chinese billionaire. On Tuesday a phone number listed online for CoastJet was disconnected.
Separate documents obtained from Insolvency Trustee Services Australia show Dr Hingston was bankrupted on August 4 2009.
Dr Hingston's lawyer Philip Beazley said that bankruptcy had been annulled. He also confirmed the reported facts surrounding the collapse of CoastJet, saying it was designed to be a community ambulance service.
Google declined to comment on the case.
Through his lawyer, Dr Hingston said he did not think it would be appropriate to comment further whilst the matter was before the US courts.
Dr Hingston's website DrGuy.com.au describes him as a "cancer surgeon, author & speaker" and he sells men and women's health books on his website which he describes as a "service manual for life".
In October last year a jury in Australia found Google liable for $200,000 in damages after a complaint that its search results linked 62-year-old Melbourne man Milorad Trkulja to gangland crime. He had previously won a similar case against Yahoo.
Last year former German first lady Bettina Wulff sued Google over the autocomplete phrases "Bettina Wulff prostitute" and "Bettina Wulff escort". The case has yet to be resolved.
Google was ordered by a Tokyo court in March last year to disable certain autocomplete results related to a Japanese man which linked his name with a series of crimes. His lawyer had said he lost his job and had been rejected for others he'd applied for as a result of the autocomplete issue.
In January last year a French court fined Google $65,000 because the search engine's autocomplete function prompted the French word for "crook" when users typed the name of an insurance company.
Google writes on its website that autocomplete results are "a reflection of the search activity of all web users and the content of web pages indexed by Google".
Leanne O'Donnell, senior associate with Herbert Geer in Melbourne said Google's defence would likely be that the autocomplete results are automated and it does not control them.
She said the Trkulja case in Australia "opened the door" to Google being held responsible for the contents of its search pages but the Hingston case would be a "test case" in the US, where courts may be more "reticent to interfere", in part because of greater protection of free speech.
In another case, the ACCC has alleged before the High Court that Google should be held responsible for its AdWords. A decision in this matter is expected in February.
"Normally [Google] would try to say 'we don't publish it, it's just an automatic algorithm it's not like a newspaper publishing a column', but that's something that the courts are now examining in more depth," O'Donnell said.


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OCEAN CITY – The 25th Annual Seaside Boat will celebrate its silver anniversary with this weekend's show at the Roland E. Powell Convention Center.
Held annually to coincide with Presidents Day weekend, one of the largest holiday weeks of the offseason, the event will take place on Friday, Feb. 15, noon-6 p.m.; Saturday, Feb. 16, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; and Sunday, Feb. 17, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Cost is $8 for adults and $1 for children.
The event is sponsored by the Ocean City-Berlin Optimist Club, one of the area's leading civic organizations comprised of 121 members who work in the year to raise money to provide activities and programs for area youth.
Approximately 120 exhibitors will be featured including marinas, marine publications, local fishing associations, fishing tournaments and much more.
One of the highlights of the event is the annual raffle. North Bay Marina and Scott McCurdy for the last 22 years have donated a Sweetwater Pontoon Boat with motor as the raffle's grand prize.
All the proceeds from this year's event will benefit thousands of young people in the area.
For all the week's news see The Dispatch on Friday morning.


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I can't think of a single person who enjoys writing comments in code. I don't, my friends and colleagues don't, and I'm pretty sure there isn't a meetup group for fans of it. Outside of code that I write for blog posts, I can pretty much guarantee there are only place where I write comments is in interfaces.
The simple reason for this is that a) interfaces should be explicit, and b) implementations should be self-documenting.
The reason for this blog post is that I'm seeing a lot of code at the moment that falls into one of two traps – either everything is documented, or nothing is documented.
Everything is documented
Spot what's wrong with this code:
/** * The foo class represents blah blah blah...and so on, describing the * class in such detail it's a pity the code couldn't be generated from it */ public class Foo { /** The name */ private String name; /** * Do something with this instance. */ public void doSomething() { // Get the name String localName = this.getName(); // munge the local name localName.munge(); } /** * Get the name. * @return the name */ public String getName() { // return the name return this.name; } /** * Set the name. * @param name the name */ public void setName(String name) { // set the name this.name = name; } }
Or, to put it another way, spot what's right with it. That's a much shorter answer. The code is full of unnecessary comments – e.g. getName() gets the name – and code that seems to have been written just so it could be commented – e.g; String localName – this.getName(); The names have been changed to protect the guilty, but this is real code I've seen in a live codebase.
As as I'm concerned, implementations don't need code-level comments because that's what the code does anyway.
Nothing is documented
At the other end of the scale is this little gem:
public interface Parser { void parse(InputStream is) throws IOException, SQLFeatureNotSupportedException }
Interfaces, on the other hand, should have clear documentation that defines what goes in, a generic description of what should happen, and a clear description of what comes out and what exceptions can be thrown. Information at this level should state if, for example, null arguments are allowed, if a null value can be returned, the circumstances in which certain exceptions can be thrown, and so on.
Interfaces should be explicit
Interfaces, to my way of thinking, are contracts, and contracts – as any blood-sucking lawyer can tell you – exist to be honoured. They can't be honoured if the terms are not explicitly set out.
There are no Burger Kings in Belgium, so if I'm in the UK or the Netherlands I am generally tempted to have one. On my most recent visit, I noticed this at the bottom of the receipt:
Or, to put it another way…
/** * Get the free drink promised by the receipt. This is valid for any burger. * @param burger the burger * @param receipt the receipt * @returns the free drink * @throws InvalidBurgerException if the burger doesn't qualify for a free drink */ public Drink getFreeDrink(Burger burger, Receipt receipt) throws InvalidBurgerException { if (MealType.HAMBURGER == meal.type() || MealType.CHEESEBURGER == meal.type() || MealType.KING_DEAL == meal.type() || meal.isPromo()) { throw new InvalidBurgerException(); } return new Drink(); }
To my simple brain, this is confusing and contradictory as hell. Your API should be clear and (as my university teachers beat into me) unambiguous – for example, the words "any" and "except" should not appear in the same sentence. Strive for clarity – if you find your API is too hard to clearly document, there's a good chance it will be annoying to use. In the case above, an improvement would be something along the lines of
/** * Get the free drink promised by the receipt. Not every burger qualifies for a free drink. * @param burger the requested burger. This may or may not qualify for a free drink * @param receipt the receipt containing the offer * @returns the free drink. May be null, depending on the burger */ public Drink getFreeDrink(Burger burger, Receipt receipt) { // implementation }
Note that I've also got rid of the exception as a result of being more explicit.
Annoying as it is, documentation is extremely important in the correct place and completely useless everywhere else. Done correctly, they will make your API easier to use and easier to maintain, which is generally a good thing.
Here endeth the lesson.